Is Sakano Simply Uninformed—or in the Same Camp as GHQ-Accommodating Yokota Kisaburō?
July 5, 2018
The following is from a recent column in Shukan Shincho by Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist of the postwar world.
How Sōichirō Reads
The English translation of The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, rendered by Watanabe Sōju and published in Japan under the title “Betrayed Freedom”, is massive.
Each volume—700 pages long—sells for 8,800 yen.
The total page count is extraordinary, so I know only a handful of people who have actually read both volumes cover to cover.
One of them is Masahiro Miyazaki.
He once joined Watanabe Sōju and me on a journey to Shimoda, following the footsteps of Yoshida Shōin.
Miyazaki is also a fan of Watanabe’s work and has reviewed books like Hamilton Fish’s The Myth of Roosevelt's Innocence in Starting the War.
He praised Hoover’s memoirs as first-class material for understanding how Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) ensnared Japan.
I don’t disagree.
However, Hoover’s understanding of Japan is quite shallow.
That’s why reading Fish’s book alongside it is helpful.
Doing so reveals FDR’s intentions—why he moved the U.S. Pacific Fleet, previously stationed on the West Coast, into the unprotected harbor of Pearl Harbor while provoking Japan.
FDR then issued the Hull Note to Japan, demanding immediate withdrawal from China and Manchuria.
Dr. Radhabinod Pal described it as a "declaration of war—no different from what Luxembourg received."
But FDR kept it hidden from the American public until the end.
He admitted to the deceit himself.
Another person who claimed to have read it was Sōichirō Tahara.
He grew up in the shadow of Hikone Castle, now a national treasure.
The castle earned that status because it survived the American bombing raids of WWII.
It’s said the castle remained intact because it served as a convenient landmark for U.S. bombers heading to targets like Osaka and Nagoya.
Even so, just before the war’s end, a lone B-29 flew over to bomb Hikone Castle.
The plan was likely to drop its remaining bombs over the castle.
Just as disaster seemed imminent, a Japanese fighter jet soared upward and rammed into the bomber.
A few bombs tumbled out of the wobbling B-29 and landed in a field near an elementary school.
Damage was minimal.
For any military-minded youth, it would be a moment of deep emotion.
But eleven-year-old Tahara’s memory contains no such account.
Instead, he only recalls tired phrases about “a postwar reversal of values,” like those recited by antiwar cultural elites.
After joining a TV station, he went so far as to film a wedding ceremony where not only the bride and groom but all guests were nude.
He even captured scenes where the emotional bride embraced every guest intimately.
Now, this man—who single-handedly carries the banner of Japan’s leftist intellectuals—says, after reading Hoover’s memoirs, “This book overturns the standard Japanese view of history, which says Japan waged a war of aggression and America fought a just war.”
But that “standard view” is really just the Asahi Shimbun’s version—not that of the Japanese people.
Still, let’s leave that point aside.
So, how did this leftist react to encountering such a fresh historical perspective?
He flatly declared, “This is incorrect.”
Why?
Because “my trusted source, Professor Emeritus Junji Sakano of the University of Tokyo,” says the root cause was Japan’s erroneous China policy.
I found myself confused by this unfamiliar “Sakano,” but what he’s saying sounds identical to the U.S. prosecution’s claims at the Tokyo Trials.
That Japan violated China’s sovereignty in Manchuria, and that this was inherently wrong.
But is that really true?
Historically, China’s territory has always been confined within the Great Wall, since the days of the Qin dynasty.
It was Sun Yat-sen, the conman, who suddenly claimed the entire Qing imperial domain—including Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang—as Chinese land.
And it was the U.S. that endorsed this with the Stimson Doctrine, declaring “Manchuria belongs to China.”
The aim was to provoke Japan into war with China.
It was the same tactic used to pit the Apache against the Cherokee.
Drain Japan’s strength in war, then finish it off with American might.
There’s only room for one dominant power in the Pacific.
Because of that precedent, when today’s Communist China invades Tibet or Xinjiang, no one can complain—the U.S. already recognized those regions as “Chinese territory” under Stimson.
Hoover’s memoirs hint at this entire sequence of events, but leftist intellectuals can’t seem to grasp it.
Sakano claims that it was Prime Minister Konoe’s refusal to “engage with Chiang Kai-shek” that caused the Second Sino-Japanese War to escalate into a quagmire, leading ultimately to war with the U.S.
But Hoover’s memoirs suggest that was exactly what FDR had intended all along.
So one must ask: Is Sakano simply uneducated?
Or is he, like Kisaburō Yokota—who bent to the will of GHQ—cut from the same cloth?
We would all do well to be more discerning about whom we choose to trust.
